Hi guys, we're looking at changing the structure of the homebrew section, as it's beginning to look a little tired now.
We're aiming to add an additional two pages, because so much interesting stuff seems to be happening on the scene at the moment.
what we'd like to know from you guys is what you think of the current section. What do you feel it excels at, and where do you think it could be improved. Are we missing out certain elements of the scene, or focusing on too much of one and so fourth.

Please make sure that your feedback is constructive. This is not an opportunity to simply attack Jason's hard work each month, but a chance to genuinely have some involvement in a popular part of the magazine and discuss how it could be improved.

I know I've already registered this with you Darran, but I really think a bit more XBLIG coverage wouldn't go amiss. Maybe keep a running track of previously reviewed games so anyone picking up the mag can see what games are recommended. The genre is so awash that would be pretty useful.

We want to get more balance in there. Another thing to remember though is that sometimes it's not possible to always get stuff. There have been quite a few examples where we have asked for games to review and not be sent them because we haven't paid. We don't have a budget for such things, so they don't get covered. It's going to be a tricky balance. We can't cover everything, but we can certainly make sure the section is more balanced. I've already emailed Jason, so I'm hoping he's going to have a few ideas to add to the mix as well.

Darran@Retro Gamer wrote:We want to get more balance in there. Another thing to remember though is that sometimes it's not possible to always get stuff. There have been quite a few examples where we have asked for games to review and not be sent them because we haven't paid. We don't have a budget for such things, so they don't get covered. It's going to be a tricky balance. We can't cover everything, but we can certainly make sure the section is more balanced. I've already emailed Jason, so I'm hoping he's going to have a few ideas to add to the mix as well.

Oh yeah I totally understand that, but I am 99% sure that all the Atari games I have listed have had the ROM released for free

Darran@Retro Gamer wrote:We want to get more balance in there. Another thing to remember though is that sometimes it's not possible to always get stuff. There have been quite a few examples where we have asked for games to review and not be sent them because we haven't paid. We don't have a budget for such things, so they don't get covered. It's going to be a tricky balance.

i usually ask for ROM images because i know that people manufacturing cartridges are usually doing so just at the break even mark, but even then a few people have turned me down because they're generally worried about their games being pirated and my writing for Retro Gamer still doesn't differentiate me from Adam; in some cases i've been offered real cartridges, which is fantastic but doesn't really help if i haven't got the hardware!

Although i try to keep up with as many 8- and 16-bit communities as possible, i only have a finite amount of time what with a day job, family and so forth - i know i'm missing interesting releases, so if anybody sees something interesting please send me a PM - i know i miss some releases even on the formats i follow closely and i certainly don't mind receiving three or four messages about the same game!

But no more listings just yet, getting RG Rampage done almost killed me! =-)

Game creation tools might work more as a standalone feature.
The aim with the new section is to make it look a little more like a standalone magazine with its own structure. Nothing is definite yet, but it would be a good opportunity to change it. Maybe we get someone else helping Jason with the systems he doesn't have access to if time is an issue. Like I said, it's all plans at this points.

TMR - I don't really mind as long as it's publicly available. I've messed around a bit with one or two of the more basic ones (such as Game Maker and PS2 Yabasic), but not produced anything better than a couple of Snake clones!

Liamh1982 wrote:TMR - I don't really mind as long as it's publicly available. I've messed around a bit with one or two of the more basic ones (such as Game Maker and PS2 Yabasic), but not produced anything better than a couple of Snake clones!

i like Game Maker quite a bit for it's sheer sneakiness - if you use it for any length of time you end up learning GML without realising it, that's so unbelievably devious. =-)

* Proportionately more console games covered
* Less of a majority focus on games for Commodore computers

If the section is to be expanded I'd enjoy reading regular 'Best Of' articles covering the very best of homebrew releases, i.e. not solely limited to newly released games but for the 'best' homebrew games across a variety of platforms that have been released over the years.

I can somewhat agree with Dreamcast, having more console homebrew in general as a balance to the computer side would be good. But as Jason says, playing it on the real hardware is the best measure, and if you don't own the hardware... but if need be, I could help out on the 7800 and Vectrex side of things, I keep fully up to date with both scenes.